dead-alive

dead-alive (comparative more dead-alive, superlative most dead-alive)

1. Dull; lifeless; lacking originality and vitality.
   • 1906, Hilaire Belloc, , introduction to Essays in Literature and History by James Anthony Froude

     In one epoch lubricity, in another fanaticism, in a third dulness and a dead-alive copying of the past, are the faults which criticism finds to attack.

• dead or alive